Suburban Chicago-based steel company eyes move to Gary

An Illinois company has plans to relocate to Gary, where it hopes to build a new plant that would allow it to consolidate its multi-structure facility in suburban Bedford Park into a single-structure facility.

Andy Gross, president and CEO of Alliance Steel LLC, said the company sees a relocation from the Chicago suburbs to Northwest Indiana as beneficial to its bottom line in many ways.

“For us to stay in Illinois would be complicated, to be politically correct about it,” Gross said, in appearing before the Gary Common Council’s finance committee, which is reviewing a resolution that would create an Alliance Economic Revitalization Area.

That area, to be created at the one-time site of a Republic Steel plant at 2700 E. 5th Ave., would allow the city to grant tax breaks to the company.

Approval of the resolution is expected when the full Common Council meets again on Tuesday, and ordinances related to the city’s package are likely to come up before the council later in December.

Redevelopment Commission Executive Director Joseph Van Dyk has been negotiating with Alliance officials, and he said the tentative deal calls for a tax abatement for the first six years the company operates in Gary. “It’s a front-ended deal, and it is one that is mutually beneficial to Alliance and to the city,” he said. “It gets the abatement over quickly.”

Gross said company officials are hoping to have city approval of the deal done before the end of the year, with actual construction to be completed by November or December of next year.

“Maybe if we play it safe, we’ll be operational by the first month of 2020,” he said.

Alliance Steel that takes raw steel and makes products with it that are common in daily life.

Gross said, “just about everywhere you see steel, we’ve touched it,” adding that Alliance makes products from parts for school buses to satellite dishes.

Alliance Steel also maintains a trucking company and Gross said that function also would be transferred from their Bedford Park campus to Gary. Although the company plans to offer their existing employees a chance to move with the company, Gross said he expects many will not want to make the move.

Van Dyk said the city is working with Alliance to ensure that Gary-area residents will be given a priority in obtaining any new jobs.

Gross said, “We think we’re going to need to hire people right away. We will be creating jobs here.”

The latter aspect had council members pleased, saying they’re likely to begin granting their approval for the project as soon as next week.